'Red Skull' covers unveiled by Marvel

Marvel Comics has unveiled David Aja's cover artwork for its Red Skull miniseries.

Written by Gregg Pak and illustrated by Mirko Colak, the five-part story sheds light on the origin of the Captain America villain, charting his rise from street urchin to Nazi super-soldier.

"Due to the nature of the story, I wanted to portray the historical aspects on the covers," said Aja. "In doing so, I approached the covers as if they were real posters, newspapers and Nazi propaganda from that time, kind of in a documentary style.

"To make it work, I utilised different typographic techniques for each issue, emulating different typefaces in real work; so I needed a uniform tone, technique and colour in the finished art to identify all the covers as a whole collection."

Series editor Alejandro Arbona added: "Red Skull was never intended to be one of our typical superhero comics, so it shouldn't have anything like typical cover art. We knew David would invest the thoughtfulness and deliberation to capture the complex and difficult ideas of this story.

"In short, his covers say 'This is what we're doomed to watch Johann become,' and his imagery - war, conquest, cruelty, a great evil - springs from the same tragic well. It's a disturbing set of cover images, for a dark and disquieting story."

The comic's release coincides with Joe Johnston's blockbuster movie Captain America: The First Avenger, in which the Red Skull will be played by Hugo Weaving.

Red Skull #1 arrives in stores in July.